Eric Bledsoe's prep eligibility questioned by Parker High group

Eric Bledsoe (1) goes up for a shot for Parker High School in a 2009 state tournament game against LeFlore's DeMarcus Cousins, who would become his teammate at the University of Kentucky. (The Birmingham News / Mark Almond)The head of a citizens advocacy group for Parker High School claims two high-level Birmingham school district officials told him that basketball star Eric Bledsoe was academically ineligible to play his senior season, but those officials dispute that account.

Roderick Rox, president of the Parker High School Foundation, a group of about 20 citizens whose chief mission in recent years was to rid the school of its past administration, said City Athletics Director George Moore and then Superintendent Barbara Allen told him before Bledsoe's senior season that the player's grades from his previous high school, Hayes, made him ineligible.

Rox said Moore told him again this week that Bledsoe should have been ineligible during his season senior at Parker.

Asked this week if Bledsoe was academically eligible to play as a senior, Moore replied: "The only thing I can say is when we checked eligibility, we went by the book. We checked grades that were given for him and he did meet the minimum standards."

Moore said he could not recall whether he told Rox before Bledsoe's senior season that the player was ineligible. "We had no reason to give any information to a non-board (of education) employee," Moore said. "Roderick Rox is not a board employee."